


but if you can't brew it naturally, store bought is fine

by xxELF21xx



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms
Genre: Crack Treated Seriously, Gen, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Mentions of alcohol, Misunderstandings, POV Alternating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-09 17:40:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27540139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xxELF21xx/pseuds/xxELF21xx
Summary: He's not really catching the ball that Time is throwing, but Warriorsdefinitelyhas a drinking problem.
Relationships: Four & Hyrule & Legend & Sky & Time & Twilight & Warriors & Wild & Wind (Linked Universe)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 77





	but if you can't brew it naturally, store bought is fine

**Author's Note:**

> i really just wanted to use that phrase in one of my fics + for some reason warriors has completely taken over my life please help me

‘Flask? Proxi’s wingbeats pick up speed, betraying her concern. ‘What flask?’

Legend stares impassively at her, fingers picking at one of the many war flags still hung up on the castle walls -- honestly, just how warthirsty were this Hyrule’s goddesses? -- as he nods. He sighs irritably when the fairy continues spinning yarns around the question, deceivingly good at faking her ignorance. 

‘Yeah,  _ flask,’  _ he holds back on the urge to snap, knowing full well that Warriors would no doubt hang his dead body on the chapel’s pointiest, tallest spire if anything happened to his fairy. Proxi’s face, illuminated by the otherworldly glow fairies are famously associated with, darkens unsettlingly, but she still gives no sign of an answer. 

‘Quit pretending you don’t know what I’m talking about!’ Oh, for the love of Lolia, he snapped at her. ‘It’s not like he’s really  _ inconspicuous  _ about taking giant swigs out of that thing!’ 

The sound of fabric tearing startles them both, causing them to jump apart and look to the source of another type of trouble -- not only had Legend snapped at Warriors’ most trusted companion, he’d also committed property damage in a world where he held no significant value. 

Warriors was definitely going to break his legs. Or, Marin would ignore him for a few days and take every opportunity available to express her disappointment in him. 

Warriors has too much leverage over him. He’s not fond of this. 

Proxi flutters nervously, surveying the damage with an odd calm. ‘Oh, you’ll be fine! Link’s not really on good terms with the House of Farore.’ It’s near impossible to  _ not  _ like Warriors, and even more impossible to not get along with the servants of their patron deity; Legend files that information away for another time. His brain can’t handle this much overload and worry. 

‘Stop changing the topic, fairy.’ He may have been too harsh on her, but he’s not really in the mood to play “considerate, kind Link”. ‘What’s in the  _ damned  _ flask?’ 

He wasn’t actually planning on getting any answers, shocked into silence when Proxi’s glow dims alarmingly with a tilt of her lips--

‘If he’s not even trying to hide it anymore, I may as well show you what’s in it. Better than telling you, anyway. Knowing inter-dimensional and timeline travelers, you probably can’t recognise it.’

\--Which is  _ impossible  _ (Nayru, he’s really maximising his knowledge on the Hylian language, isn’t he?). 

Everyone knows what  _ booze  _ is. 

It’s not booze. 

It’s…

  
  


The first time they see the infamous source of the group’s worries, Wind was in the middle of describing a particularly fascinating glass bottle. 

‘It’s kind of flat! Like a small notebook, about the size of Tetra’s diary!’ With energetic swings of his arm, the sailor proceeds to make a rectangle with his fingers, struggling to explain that ‘it was a little bigger than this! And it’s not made of glass… Linebeck said that it was made of metal, like weapons. It can withstand a lot of damage! It once saved Linebeck’s life during a swordfight!’ 

Twilight makes a comment about snooping around Tetra’s -- Princess Zelda’s -- items, cradling his arm with a look of palpable fear on his face (which begs the question: what exactly did he  _ do?)  _ but gets completely ignored as Four, who seems intrigued by the concept of a  _ metal bottle,  _ asks Wind to continue talking. 

Wind doesn’t have an answer for any of the smithy’s questions, an equally intrigued and perplexed face taking over the elation from before. None of the other heroes has ever seen such a bottle before either, leading to a confounding silence that dominates the group. 

It was then that Warriors’ voice rings out from the distance, figures of the captain and Hyrule sharpening as they return from scouting the area. 

‘Did it look like this?’ The captain waves an odd, obtuse thing wrapped in leather lazily in the air. 

Wind brightens up almost instantly. ‘Yeah! It looked  _ exactly  _ like that! Linebeck said that-- ‘ 

And the grin slides right off him, eyes dulling with fear and shoulders hunching. 

Warriors hadn’t noticed the abrupt change, focused on dropping off some firewood. ‘Linebeck said what? Don’t leave us hanging!’ When he turns to face the group, Wind’s smile is back, albeit more forced and entirely wooden. 

‘It’s a secret!’ 

He doesn’t notice the shaking timbre in the sailor’s voice either.

That night, whilst the captain and leader are off patrolling the camp’s perimetres, the other six crowd Wind, a dangerous glint in their eyes. 

‘Sailor… ‘ Sky’s voice is unusually pitched, raising alarm bells in their heads, ‘do you mind explaining what happened?’ 

Hyrule looks up from his seat near the fire, suddenly aware of the malicious aura sliding off the Chosen Hero. ‘Hey, what’s going on?’ When he receives no reply, he ventures closer, tugging Legend’s sleeve in an attempt to pull the man away from a cowering Wind. ‘Guys?’ 

Their resident dog whisperer clamps a hand on Hyrule’s shoulder, halting him in his tracks. ‘This is important business, ‘Rule.’ He freezes on the spot, unnerved, as Twilight walks over to Wind with a scowl. 

‘You shouldn’t be looking at other people’s things, Wind.’ There’s a hard edge in his tone, guilt flipping Hyrule’s stomach uncomfortably even though he didn’t understand what was happening. ‘That’s an invasion of privacy.’ 

Wind’s eyes turn to the size of plates. Sky, on the other hand, barks out: ‘that’s  _ not  _ what this is about!’ 

Twilight voices his confusion and Hyrule is even  _ more  _ confused -- what happened this afternoon?

That night, the seven of them came to a conclusion.

Warriors was particularly jittery that day. 

He rose earlier than everyone else, already feeding the flames of a new campfire. It wasn’t obvious to anyone then, but there was a jolt to everything the man did. He was also easily distracted, tuning out one too many times when Wild asked for opinions on breakfast. 

But the champion didn’t mind, brushing it aside with ease. Maybe Warriors had a nightmare; everyone has them once in a while, Wild will leave him be for now. They’ll talk later, after they’ve hit the road again.

It did feel weird when the normally composed captain was suddenly sluggish and far too quiet, lagging behind as they made their way to Time’s home. 

Unsettled, the champion lingers nearby, eyes tracking Warriors’ every move. Had he perhaps fallen ill? Maybe Warriors hadn’t gotten off as easily as he made it seem in the last monster-skewer skirmish, and he was suffering from a grievous injury? Was it a good time to breach the subject of nightmares and destined duties? 

A harsh glint of hard metal captures his attention, and Wild watches in concealed horror as the captain tips the bottle --  _ flask,  _ Time had called it -- upwards, the man taking several gulps before quickly stuffing it back into his bag. 

By the time they reach Lon Lon Ranch, Warriors was no longer shaky. 

Twilight is the one who breaks the silence. 

For one, while he’s good at keeping secrets, his concern for others usually overrides that particular trait; causing the floodgates to give way sooner than later. Moving on from that:  _ nothing  _ escapes Time’s notice.

Their de facto leader gives Twilight  _ one  _ withering look, a side glance from the corner of his eye which spoke  _ volumes  _ of disappointment and exasperation, and the ranch hand immediately crumbles like dry, flaky pie crust. 

‘Warriors has a drinking problem,’ tumbles out rather ungracefully out of Twilight’s mouth. Both Time  _ and  _ Warriors stare at him like he’s grown a second head. 

‘No, I don’t!’ 

‘You kind of do.’ Followed by a loud  _ thwack!  _ of a bare hand hitting armour, then an irritated huff.

‘I  _ don’t!’  _

He’s not really catching the ball that Time is throwing, but Warriors  _ definitely  _ has a drinking problem. 

  
  


_ ‘Coffee?’  _

  
  


‘How….does this work, exactly?’ Legend stares at the contraption in front of him, a bag of coffee beans nested right next to him. He chooses not to see the tower of bags stacked high up against the wall of the kitchen, keeping his sights directly in front of him.

See no evil, do no evil; and all that jazz. 

Proxi huffs, every bit like Warriors (who’s the tutor and who’s the student, Legend grumbles inwardly), ‘I would’ve thought you knew how a  _ coffee grinder  _ works! Aren’t you the Hero of Legend? This should be easy for you!’ 

_ Why me?!  _ He wants to scream. Instead, he shakes his head and inches away from the so-called coffee grinder, the tiny menace sitting atop a table. ‘I’ve never had coffee.’ In fact, he didn’t even know what coffee was supposed to taste like!

‘But, are you not Ravio’s-- ‘ 

‘Coffee is a  _ Lorulean  _ thing! And I didn’t stay long enough to even taste a sip of it.’ But, judging by how Ravio’s nose would constantly wrinkle in distaste at the mention of the drink, he doesn’t think coffee tasted like anything divine. 

There’s also another  _ important  _ piece of news he’s confused about. ‘Even if I did know how to make coffee, it’s not using--’ he gestures to the contraption ‘--whatever  _ this  _ is. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a grinder this small.’ And if he remembered rightly, Ravio was always complaining about Hilda’s obsession with coffee, and how often she lamented about grinding the beans down to powder perfectly each time. The grinders he mentioned were often bulky things with a large handle at the top. 

Proxi’s -- or was it Warriors’? -- grinder just looked like a giant bottle jammed into something, with more knobs and buttons that he hadn’t a clue of what they were for. 

Curse technological magic and everything that is Warriors’ weird Hyrule.

It takes him a few more moments before he’s able to decidedly  _ not  _ digest anything he’d just seen or heard, shaking it off to confirm the cause of their greatest problem (so far). 

‘Wait. So, he’s not an alcoholic?’ 

The fairy gives him an unimpressed look reminiscent of Time’s. ‘He’s not terribly fond of it. Would avoid it if possible, actually.’ 

Legend’s brain needs to get checked. It takes a startlingly long while for him to process the statement and move on to the next conclusion:

‘He’s hooked on caffeine.’ 

(Why can’t Warriors just get addicted to tea, like Ravio? Tea had caffeine too.

And it was so much  _ easier  _ to get right.)

None of them actually has a valid reason for doing any of this -- Warriors didn’t know that his “big secret” was out, nobody but Legend knew what  _ coffee  _ was, and everyone had spat the awful liquid out when Proxi offered them a taste. 

Hyrule had called it “bog water” and flat out refused to even try. 

‘Why can’t I get this right?!’ Four tosses out a fresh brew, eyes hard as diamonds.  _ ‘Theoretically,  _ it should taste like cranberries, right?  _ Right?’  _ He stresses the word another three times, abandoning the brewing utensils for a mess of books and scrolls about various coffee-making techniques. Twilight is by his side, face scrunched up as he’s forced to taste test yet another cup, confirming that Four’s coffee tasted more like acid than sour cranberries.

Proxi had forbidden Wind from being the smithy’s partner, warning about the negative effects of coffee on children and young teens -- which,  _ wow,  _ Warriors really let that awful concoction poison him slowly? 

Wild grunts from the other side of the kitchen, glaring into a bowl of powder… chunks(?), taking out his frustrations with the coffee grinder and it’s seven hundred different settings. ‘Why doesn’t it come out perfectly? That’s what machines are meant to do, right?’ 

Meanwhile, Legend and Sky are poring over the, apparently, different types of beans in front of them. 

Legend knows which of the beans were from Lorule, familiar with the fruity scent after spending  _ weeks  _ trying to get Zelda to lay off of coffee. Obviously, he failed, to which he blames Ravio. The other beans though… 

Sky scoops up a handful of beans from a dark green bag, comparing it to its Lorulean counterpart. ‘They  _ look  _ the same…’ He mutters, ‘are they supposed to smell any different?’ 

Proxi chimes an affirmative, explaining that the green bags are beans grown in this Hyrule’s Faron Woods. ‘They give off a more citrusy scent and taste! Link likes to mix both types together as his usual blend. The beans from Faron Woods are especially popular as a single origin, and is best prepared by hand-brewing!’ 

Blend? Best prepared?  _ Single origin?  _

‘I’m hearing you talk, but nothing is registering.’ Defeated, Legend joins Wind in the time-out zone. 

After numerous failed attempts, they return to their rooms in disgrace, grumbling. Four and Wind bear the greatest grudge, both unwilling to believe that they’ve failed in some way. Twilight looks a little green, draping himself over Wild as the champion looks deep in thought. 

‘How does Warriors get so much coffee?’ Twilight groans at his successor’s question. ‘I mean! The flask looks  _ tiny!’  _

‘Magic?’ Hyrule offers, patting Twilight’s back sympathetically. ‘Maybe his bottle works like a Sheikah Slate and it can store a lot of uh,  _ coffee.’  _

‘Or maybe he just makes coffee on the go? The brewing kit and hand-held grinder Proxi showed us don’t take up much space.’ Wind’s suggestion gets shot down by Sky, reminding him that someone would’ve seen Warriors prepare it. 

‘Brewing takes a while too, unless he has boiling water everywhere he goes, I doubt so,’ Four, master-apprentice at not-coffee making, draws a negative on Wind’s statement. 

‘Can we  _ stop  _ talking about coffee? I think I’m going to hurl.’ Twilight’s groaning ends the discussion.

Warriors and Time are seated comfortably in the captain’s room -- their go-to meet up spot in this world. Both of them are drinking from teacups, but it’s coffee that’s in them.

‘I need a moment.’ Twilight walks back out, sounding sick as a wet dog. 

Raising an eyebrow, the captain silently asks what’s wrong with the group. Time gives them a critical once-over before going back to his drink. 

Nobody replies, shuffling in place like kids caught sneaking out at night.

‘They were trying to brew coffee.’ Time answers for them, pouring himself another cup and adding way too many sugar cubes, very pointedly not looking at them. 

‘Why would they be making coffee? Coffee doesn’t exist in anyone else’s Hyrule?’ 

Finally, the dam to Four’s frustration burst, and he demands Warriors to  _ teach me how to get coffee to taste like cranberries before I rip your pretty head clean off your shoulders!  _ Wild is no better, crowding into Warriors’ personal space with a barrage of questions for how to use the coffee grinder, with Sky asking his own set of questions with a calmer tone. 

Gobsmacked, Warriors’ voice becomes a grave reminder that none of them think before they act.

‘Why would you make your own coffee when Castletown is basically littered with coffee shops? I’ve mentioned them several times on our way here, and Lana even offered to take you guys on a tour to her favourite spots.’ 

  
  


Coffee doesn’t taste  _ that  _ bad with sugar and cream in it. He’s not sure why Ravio was so against it. 

‘Wait! But  _ your  _ coffee doesn’t look like ours! It’s just… black?’

‘Because I drink it black?’

Warriors is a depraved man. 

‘Do you make your own coffee?’ 

‘Uh, yea. Got used to making my own coffee during the war, not a lot of shops were open. Oh, but Time can make a mean brew! He likes to ruin it by cramming the cup with sugar, though.’ 

**_What._ **

**Author's Note:**

> yes, hyrule is correct.   
> and yes, warriors has spat out time's coffee numerous times before


End file.
